Hi Steve, I have one of those questions you love to talk about regarding executions;
It seems lately I am finding it increasing hard to trade using limit orders (I'm currently using E*Trade). A market order or a limit to buy at the ask or sell at the bid happens almost immediately. But if I place limit orders between the bid and ask, E*Trade will immediately reflect my order in the quote, and it seems I can watch my order execute, but then I get no confirmation. It is seeming more and more lately that I only get the confirmation if the stock moves against me. If the stock moves in my favor, I'll never get a fill. I used to have no problem getting executions, I could fairly easily and regularly scalp most of the spread, but no more.
I've played with this over and over. I'll enter a weird order, like 800 shares at xx 13/16. The quote will update appropriately, and I can watch the next trade be 800 shares at xx 13/16. But I get no confirmation. I've done this several times. If I just wait and the stock moves favorable, I'll never get the fill. If the stock moves against me, I'll get the fill. If I try to cancel, sometimes it will take several minutes to get a cancel, almost like someone is just holding it waiting to see which way the stock will move. Of course if it moves against me, they'll say I was already filled. If it moves for me, I'll get a cancel.
It's seeming more and more that these limit orders are just a sure way to get screwed. If it is a buy order, they'll get your shares bought, and then just hold them and wait and see which way the stock moves. If it moves down, they'll give you a confirmation, if it moves up, they'll keep your shares and say your limit order never got filled.
This happened to me twice today and I missed out on two good trades. Both times I entered buy orders between the spread, the bid moved up to my price, several trades occurred at my price, the stock continued moving up a half point, and of course I got no fill.
This seems illegal, but there is no way to prove it is going on. But I have seen others on SI (maybe here) complain about the same thing.
Do you think this happens? If so, were would the problem lie, with the traders at E*Trade, or the MM they route the order to? Anything I could do (I know, move my money to Yamner :-))? I'm finding it almost impossible to do any decent trades anymore.
Also, I'm considering moving my account to the likes of MB Trading or CyBer Trader. Can the same type of games happen there?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Steve |
